Of course he owes his narrow election victory to a man named Coates. So if Coates wants something done up here in San Francisco* but it doesn’t increase our commonweal, well, that’s what we’d call a conflict of interest (or everyday politics, take your pick.) Anyway, as District 2 Supervisor, he’s well north of his scionic predecessors, but he’ll be sure to tow the party line (the right of the aisle party line) whether it makes sense or not.

“Supervisor Farrell is also looking for ways to pitch it beyond aesthetics.”

Oh really! There just might be something more important out in the world than the aesthetic imperatives of a handful of Russian Hill millionaires who want to give the 415 a makeover and who want to tax every San Francisco renter $50 a year for the “benefit?”

So I suppose we’ll soon hear about the important safety benefits of doing whatever it is these aestheticians can dream up?

Hoo boy.

But IRL, Wires are Life. Wires connect people and move people cheaply and safely. Wires are beautiful, man.

See? Kicker Garo Yepremien tried to score a few points but then opposing counsel filed a special motion to strike that was so special that discovery was immediately halted. Then he lost the hearing and that was the end of the suit, it looks like. I’m saying Elisabeth Theriot got pwned in court.

With a quickness.

Which, you know, this kind of thing doesn’t happen every day so that’s why I made a post about it.

But now the world is supposed to end tomorrow ‘n stuff and there’s no Mayan Prophecy “film” to see.

Oh well.

Now, what about San Francisco Examiner President and Publisher Todd Vogt? Do you think he got some sort of request or demand or something from rich Marin County whacko Elisabeth Theriot or the wire service or somebody to take down the wire story on these topics, you know, that used to be posted right here?

Why would the ‘Xam have a page dedicated to rich Marin County whacko Elisabeth Theriot (just look at the URL bar) with nothing to say about her? It’s because the story about her that used to be there is no longer there.
Is there cowardice here?

I’ll tell you, TheWrap.com stood up to rich Marin County whacko Elisabeth Theriot and was/will be rewarded with mandatory attorney fees as a kind of reward.

Now I’ll tell you, when an actual newspaper (improperly, IMO) caves to some rich lady, that just might have the effect of emboldening her. Then she just might start going after poor, defenseless WordPress bloggers.

But maybe I’m way off on this one.

If so, please somebody disabuse me.

* I call it a video because it was (mostly?) recorded on digicams – no film required. The current title of this still-troubled production is Mayan Revelations & Hollywood Lies. It’s delayed. It’s nonsense. Oh what’s that, we’re going to see just how important that Long Count calendar is tout de suite? No we won’t. Sorry. Oh, over the coming decades? No we won’t. Sorry.

“The chief reason is that our site began as Chronicle readership began dropping precipitously, particularly among those likely to read Beyond Chron. So our readers had not even heard of the Chronicle pieces we were critiquing.”

So how much of a direct subsidy does the Chronicle get from the City and County to write for the web? Zero, I’m thinking. And yet Beyond Chron gets way fewer viewers per writer even though it’s subsidized.

Do you think the somehow-obscure SFGate website, which to its credit actually allows commenters to comment, needs to struggle over and over and over to get an entry into Wikipedia?

Well, let’s see here – after getting bounced from the Wiki for not being prominent (or whatever) enough, this was yet another shot at getting the Beyond Chron into the Wiki – it’s from a few years back:

“Beyond Chron is an alternative daily news website based out of San Francisco that covers local and national politics and culture. Veteran activist Randy Shaw of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic founded Beyond Chron in April 2004, after local progressive activists expressed increasing frustration about stories that were ignored or distorted by the San Francisco Chronicle. Inspired by the success that blogs like Daily Kos have accomplished at the national level, Beyond Chron aspired to play a similar role at the local level [1].

In July 2008, Beyond Chron was voted “Best Local Website” in the San Francisco Bay Guardian’s annual “Best of the Bay” issue- where it was dubbed “the FUBU of local news sources” [2]. Editor-in-Chief Randy Shaw and Managing Editor Paul Hogarth are frequent guests on radio and television programs, where they provide commentary about the local political scene [3].

Because Beyond Chron is published by a housing non-profit (the Tenderloin Housing Clinic), its local news coverage has a heavy emphasis on rent control and tenants’ rights. In April 2006, Beyond Chron broke the news that Mayor Gavin Newsom’s press secretary, Peter Ragone, had purchased a tenancy-in-common unit in which a protected tenant had been evicted [4]. This may have been a factor as to why the Newsom Administration reversed its position on restrictions for TIC evictions [5].

In recent years, Beyond Chron has increased its coverage of national politics — especially the 2008 presidential campaign. In August 2007 at the Yearly Kos Convention, managing editor Paul Hogarth asked Senator Hillary Clinton a four-part question during her “break-out” session that attracted national media attention [6]. Hogarth’s write-up of the event (“Yearly Kos Has Endangered Hillary’s Nomination”) was rated as a #1 diary on Daily Kos [7] – and he was subsequently invited to go on MSNBC’s Hardball.[8] Well before the traditional media caught on, Hogarth was one of the first to predict that Bill Clinton would become a liability for his wife’s campaign [9].

Using the successful model it has employed against the San Francisco Chronicle, Beyond Chron has in the past few weeks directed its fire towards the New York Times — due to what it perceives as the paper’s anti-Obama bias in its general election coverage. Randy Shaw has started writing a weekly column in Beyond Chron called Beyond Times.

John Buchanan, Director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), says this is your “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” Listen to him talk all about the new show on KQED-FM’s Forum program – it’s on right now.

“Post-Impressionists From the Musee d’Orsay
We discuss the second of two exhibits hosted by San Francisco’s de Young Museum, featuring Impressionist masterpieces from the Musee d’Orsay in Paris. This exhibit highlights Post-Impressionist works from Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne and beyond. We talk with the directors of both the Musee d’Orsay and the de Young Museum.

Host: Michael Krasny

Guests:

Guy Cogeval, president of the Musee d’Orsay in Paris

John Buchanan, director of Fine Arts Museums San Francisco, including the de Young Museum”

But if you miss the radio show, they’ll post an mp3 soon enough.

It’s Didi! Diane B. Wilsey, Board President of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), reminded everybody about the goings on at the “little sister” Legion of Honor Museum just to the north of the de Young:

And here’s Romain Serman, our brand new French Consul General. He’s been on the job in San Francisco for seven weeks. He says that we’re “truly the sister of Paris.”

And here’s Guy Cogeval, President of the Musee D’Orsay. He says this exhibit is more beautiful than the first one he loaned us this year.

Just put it down next to a Bedroom at Arles,wherever you want. It’s like all those paintings you learned about at Wellesey College have been gathered together in one place, real close to where you live.

And then the inspection comes, to make sure nothing got damaged:

They compare what they see with handwritten charts that show existing defects, just like when you turn in a rental car:

Everything should be ready by Saturday.

See you there!

September 25, 2010 – January 18, 2011

The second of two exhibitions from the Musée d’Orsay’s permanent collection, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne, and Beyond: Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsayfollows on the heels of the first witha selection of the most famous late-Impressionist paintings by Claude Monet and Auguste Renoir, as well as works representing the individualist styles of the early modern masters, including Vincent van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gauguin, and the Nabis Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard.

It is here where the Orsay’scollection shines brightest with masterpieces such as Van Gogh’s Starry Night over the Rhone, a haunting Portrait of the Artist, and Bedroom at Arles. The exhibition includes a superior collection of paintings from the Pont-Avenschool, including Gauguin’s masterpiece Self-Portrait withThe Yellow Christ. The exhibition concludes with the Orsay’s spectacular collection of pointillist paintings, represented by the masters Georges Seurat and Paul Signac.

Like the previous exhibition (“Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay”), this treasured collection is on loan from the The Musée d’Orsay in Paris while they undergo a partial closure for refurbishment — the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings will be reinstalled in their permanent galleries in spring 2011 in anticipation of Musée d’Orsay’s 25th Anniversary.

The de Young is the only museum in the world to host both of the Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay exhibitions, and this particular combination of paintings will never travel again — so get your tickets now before they sell out.